Yingjian Chen
Internship
1. My STEP Signature Project was doing the 2018 Summer Global Internship Program (SGIP) at Hong Kong through the Office of Global Business. I spent eight weeks working at Live Nation (HK) Limited, an entertainment company, as an unpaid Digital Marketing Intern, as well as experiencing a different culture.
2. I chose marketing as my major because I have always thought that marketing combines my strength in analytics and interests in design. Analytical skills are essential for conducting any market research while a creative mindset can be very helpful in solving different problems in the business field. In particular, I am interested in being a marketer in the entertainment industry where I hope to bring joys and happiness to everyone. However, this internship experience allows me to discover so much more reasons why I am passionate about marketing and the entertainment industry. I am eager to work in this field because not only I could see myself making achievements but also I feel that I will truly enjoy what I do for a living. I love to face new challenges every day, to strive for growth, and to work with a bunch of people whom I can call friends. The eight weeks I spent at Live Nation made me feel that I wish I could work here. The internship experience reassured my interest in marketing and made me feel glad that I decide to pursue a career in marketing.
3. Many activities and interactions that happened during the eight-week duration helped contribute to my realization. One feature I discovered about the entertainment industry during my internship is that marketing projects have no particular routines, it’s extremely unpredictable. Even though the company has to go through similar processes to promote an event and create content calendars, every project is unique of its own. You would never know what you may encounter. You may have limited days to promote, and different clients may have specific requests and so on. I learned to adjust a lot for each project, and there are so many possible approaches, which makes this working experience so interesting to me.
In addition, I experienced a great deal of self-fulfillment during my internship. One of my duties was to help post on the companies’ social media accounts, for example, Facebook and Instagram. Every time someone commented, liked or shared these posts, I felt a strong sense of achievement, because I think I have contributed and my effort did not go to waste. This sense of fulfillment I get in the entertainment industry really helped me confirm my attitude towards a career in one.
One last thing that helped me confirm a career in the industry is the environment. I get the impression that the people in the entertainment industry are generally very friendly to work with. From my experience, colleague’s relationships are very similar to friendships, people joke around and hang out with each other. Despite being busy, everyone is happy and relaxed because of the office culture. Moreover, my supervisor is extremely passionate and willing to teach, he shared with me his experiences and gave me many useful tips to work in the industry. Despite that I am an intern, my supervisor never bothered to show me internal documents in order for me to understand the industry better. He also paid a lot of attention to my learning process. He made sure that I understand what he taught and welcomed me to ask him as many questions as possible.
4. The better I know why I enjoy working in the marketing field and the entertainment industry, the more I certain I feel about my future career path, and this is something very valuable to me. Even though I know that I am passionate about marketing, I always have some concerns and worries for the future because of all the uncertainties that I am currently facing. Understanding that I truly love what I will probably be doing for the next couple of years reassures me. I am learning and gradually changing every single day and may have a completely different career goal in five or ten years, but right now, this kind of self-realization is what I need. It motivates me to reach my potentials and to chase my dream fearlessly.